


Welcome Home

by waywardriot



Series: Vanven Week 2019 [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, VanVen Week (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardriot/pseuds/waywardriot
Summary: Sometimes a promise is all that can carry Ventus and Vanitas forward and bring them home in each other's arms.Vanven Week Day 2: Promise
Relationships: Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Vanven Week 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576738
Comments: 21
Kudos: 53





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> day 2! not entirely happy with this, but here we go.
> 
> (if you already saw this fic, i'm reposting because the date got fucked up.)

The sky stretches out above Vanitas’s head, an endless landscape that never moves and never changes, only displaying the same pinpricks of light that tell the same stories every time they appear. They’re mere projections, hollow specks that speak nothing of true stars; nevertheless, Vanitas can never stop staring at them. 

Just as every night, whether in the Badlands or on some strange world or within their safe haven, he lays on the ground with his arms haphazardly thrown out at his sides and his fingers digging their way into the sand. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the desert, but it yields like the cracked ground never did and provides lingering warmth.

Each part of this island that’s different from his old ‘home’ brings him peace—and that includes the other person trapped here.

Vanitas can tell when Ventus is approaching by the sound of the sand crunching, his feet always light on the ground like there’s wind beneath them. Quietly so as not to disturb Vanitas too much, Ventus crouches down, pecks him on the nose, and then adjusts until he’s laying down, curled at Vanitas’s side. Placing his head on Vanitas’s shoulder, one hand idly draws shapes onto his chest, a calming, familiar action.

The nights spent like this are perfectly peaceful, something the both of them vied for for so long, although this came about in a much different way than intended. This is perhaps the only true peace Vanitas will ever get, and he clings onto it desperately when he pulls Ventus further into his side, arm curled around his shoulders and possessively holding him. That same need claws at Ventus’s heart, so he presses as close as he can, like he’ll never be torn away again. 

There’s something pressing on Ventus’s mind more than other nights, though, made obvious to both of them by the way he keeps fidgeting more than usual, heels scuffing in the sand as he occasionally huffs out small sighs. After a few minutes of this, Vanitas is about to snap at Ventus to cut that shit out when Ventus breaks the silence between them, darting his eyes over to Vanitas’s face. “Do you think that things will be the same when we wake up again?”

Vanitas just hums in answer at first and brings his hand up to run it through Ventus’s hair, making Ventus give one of those sweet little sighs that he so loves. He’d ask why Ventus asked that, but he knows; lately, he’s felt the antsiness to return to real life rising at a rapid pace. “I’d like to think so—but I have a feeling our journey isn’t over just yet.”

“Why?”

“Ventus, what will you do if Xehanort gets to me again?”

At that, Ventus abruptly sits up and stares down at him with wide eyes, his hand twisting in the front of Vanitas’s shirt. His heart beats a frantic _pitter-patter_ in his chest, and he feels a bit like he’s drowning just from hearing that name again, one neither of them has mentioned in a very long time. After a decade, the way to survive is by pretending that things are okay—as okay as they can be. “What do you mean?” he asks, voice strained.

Vanitas glances to Ventus before he directs his gaze back up to the sky, and his eyes fall on a shooting star that shouldn’t be there. “Sora’s journey will be beginning soon.”

Ventus’s eyes catch that same star, and he keens softly. “So it will,” he agrees. “But—how does Xehanort play a part in this when he should be gone?”

Vanitas wishes he could reassure Ventus of the frail hope he’s held on to for the last decade, but he can’t lie about this. “He’s not gone. I can just…” He clenches a hand over his heart, and it _hurts_ for a moment before the sensation disappears when Ventus lays his hand over it as well. “I can feel it. There’s still a call in my heart.”

“Things—things will be different when we get out. Even if Xehanort is there, we’ll work together. I won’t let us be apart again,” Ventus insists, his lower lip trembling the slightest bit. 

Vanitas sits up and faces Ventus with his legs crossed beneath him. “You need to be ready in case it _does_ happen, Ventus. Xehanort still has power over me. You know that. I know that,” he says as he motions towards his eyes, the most poignant indication of the iron grip Xehanort still has on him. No matter how long it’s been and how impenetrable his prison is—Vanitas’s eyes stay the same. 

Ventus gets teary-eyed and Vanitas feels guilty, but this is a necessary conversation. It’s better to break his heart a little bit at a time rather than shatter it the next time they run into each other in the waking world.

It’s almost time for Vanitas to wake up; he just knows it, that he’ll be pulled from slumber and play a role that he’s tried to escape for so many years.

As much as he wishes it, he knows there’s not a happy ending for him, but he’ll try to give Ventus what he deserves while he has the time.

“I…” Ventus stops when his voice cracks, and he vigorously rubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms. The worst part of this is that he knows deep inside that Vanitas is right about Xehanort. They exist in stasis—in some weird kind of purgatory—and when they escape, the waking world might not be okay.

Aqua and Terra would’ve come to get him by now if they could; he has that incredibly overwhelming faith in them, so he knows that something is wrong with the worlds.

He scoots a little closer to Vanitas and picks up his hands, holding them delicately like he cherishes them and rubbing his thumbs along some of the large scars on his palms. “You have to promise me, Vanitas.”

“I don’t like promises.”

“I know.” Ventus has had many conversations with Vanitas about his feelings of betrayal over losing the things he was promised, and each hurts him. “But you know Xehanort never really cared whether or not your suffering ended. _I_ do. Please, Vanitas. Just promise me that we’ll find each other again.”

Vanitas squeezes Ventus’s hands and turns his head to look out to the ocean: always there, flowing steadily and constantly pulling and pushing. It’s been a source of comfort for him, but his biggest comfort above everything else in the worlds is right in front of him.

“Okay,” he agrees, again meeting Ventus’s eyes which are still wide and brimming with tears. “I promise. You know I’d tear every goddamn world down if it would mean I’d find you again… but there’s a chance that I won’t be looking for you for a good reason. That I won’t be the same person.”

“I don’t care. I’ll bring you back, okay? You come find me, and I promise I’ll help you be yourself again. Xehanort has a hold on your heart, but my claim is bigger. You’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

Ventus gives him a big, beaming smile and lets go of Vanitas’s hands to link their pinkies. “And I’m yours.”

Drawn once again, Vanitas looks back to the sky, and Ventus wonders just what he could be seeing up in the heavens. “Head in the clouds,” he softly teases, “You gonna come back down to me?”

Lips quirking up into a smile, Vanitas rolls his eyes and laces their fingers together again. “One day I’ll come home. I promise.”

His heart aches so, but Ventus knows what must be done. A slightly bittersweet smile on his face, he returns to watching the sky again just as two more stars fall.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Days and months blend into each other with more peaceful days and more starry nights, but during one of them Ventus wakes up to Vanitas fading from his arms; eyes resigned and hands beseeching, Vanitas whispers that promise again—and again and again. He knows what’s coming for him, what’s been patiently waiting to pull him apart for the past decade. This is the start of a new journey, one that won’t be good, but he knows there’s nothing he can do to change it.

Ventus knows the same, but that doesn’t stop him from trying all the same to get Vanitas to stay, holding tight onto his hands and weeping the same promise. The promise can’t keep Vanitas by his side, though, and then his other half is gone with a whisper of _‘I’ll come back to you’_ left on the wind.

Two pairs of identical blue eyes clamber their way up into the tree house to find one friend gone and one friend wailing, and there’s nothing they can do but reassure Ventus that it’s not over.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Ventus’s remaining days in Sora’s heart are fraught, fueled by grief and a desire to get out and save his friends—all his friends, old and new, the ones forged in reality and forged in a mirage.

When it’s time for him to wake up, he bursts out from the spark of two of his most important people, ready to take his place in the world and at Vanitas’s side. 

Instead, his heart fragments when he realizes that Vanitas had been right; he’s not the same person as he’d become over their time together. Years of progress and cultivated love have become nothing under the hand of Xehanort, and all that remains is a snarling boy reverted to what he had been back in the desert.

Still, despite what Vanitas has been returned to, what’s the same as always is that all he can focus on is his other half. He doesn’t understand the anguish in Ventus’s eyes that’s unfamiliar and new, but he knows that he wants to take him within himself, skin and bone and tissue one again.

The promise still rings out from his heart, and that’s what led him here even if he doesn’t know it.

When Ventus sees the look in Vanitas’s eyes, he knows that Vanitas doesn’t remember their time spent together; the experiences they shared are now hidden deep within his heart, too deep to touch. 

One half of their promise has been fulfilled because Vanitas found Ventus, so Ventus must carry through his promise to help bring Vanitas all the way back home. He’ll die trying if he must—he’ll do whatever is required of him if it means he’ll see Vanitas happy and safe again.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Their separate journeys were heavy ones, but now they stand at close odds in the place where they died and were reborn again.

Vanitas may spit words that try to ring true, but Ventus could never be fooled by the things he says when he knows so much better. With quiet nights came conversations about their wants and hopes and fears, and Vanitas’s were so different from what he’s now insisting. 

Maybe in another life Ventus would fall for it, but this time he’s not going home without Vanitas at his side.

No matter how much he lies and insists, Vanitas can tell that Ventus knows something more than he should. It would be so easy for him to slip away, for his existence to unwind and him to float away to somewhere that he hopefully wouldn’t hurt, but that promise he can’t put a finger on still calls him forward.

The outstretched hand invokes something Vanitas can’t remember, making his head hurt; it’s a desperate need crawling beneath his skin that feels different than the normal need that has plagued him for years. Morphed into something new, he doesn’t know what to do with himself besides take the two hands offered to him.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
When Xehanort is dead and their feet are on flourishing ground, Ventus sags against Vanitas and cries for what he’s lost and what’s finally come back to him. “I told you I’d get you back,” he weeps openly, gripping onto Vanitas’s arms like— _because_ he’s never letting Vanitas go again. “Do you remember? Can you remember for me?”

Vanitas’s head feels more messed up than ever, like he’s been shaken up until he’s lost his orientation with reality and could now be upside-down for all he knows. “Remember what?” Vanitas breathes out, supporting Ventus’s weight, but he almost knows. He can feel something crawling under his skin and trying to burst out, urging him to remember, but it just needs the key to unlock it. 

His heart tells him Ventus is the key, yet he doesn’t know why.

“Do you trust me? Can you come somewhere with me?” Ventus breathes out, staring deep into Vanitas’s eyes like he sees something that Vanitas can’t see in the mirror.

Vanitas hates him, but he still feels that he can trust Ventus more than anything. Another unexplained emotion that makes him keep going with the flow of his heart.

He follows Ventus into the stars, trailing behind him like his shadow with hands clasped together.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
They find themselves standing on the shore of the island of Sora’s heart—real instead of ephemeral. Drawn like a moth to a flame, Vanitas walks forward and forward until he’s ankle-deep in the water, and he stares down as he watches it lap around his skin, pulling and pushing. That something also pulls and pushes under his skin, and it claws its way further to the forefront of his mind; what it is still eludes him, but it’s coming closer and closer.

He walks out further until his shins are nearly covered by the water and continues to stare downwards as if mystified. Small fish flit by his feet and fleetingly kiss along his skin, and it almost feels like he’s going to float out of his body and return to where he needs to be—but float back to where? What’s calling him so harshly, pulling at his heartstrings?

The water is disturbed and the fish flee as Ventus wades his way over to him and just stands beside him, but Vanitas doesn’t spare him a look. He just waits until the sand settles and the water calms again, and then the fish slowly come back, swarming the two of them and dancing.

Vanitas has this sense that this is where he belongs, but he doesn’t know what to do with it. Part of his heart calls him back to the Badlands, to where everything began and ended and began again, but another part calls him right here.

“Look. The sun is setting,” Ventus says softly, interrupting Vanitas’s train of thought, and Vanitas finally tears his eyes away from the water to look at the sky that’s turning shades of pink and orange and yellow that are so _familiar_ yet so forbidden. Something inside insists he shouldn’t be allowed to see these colors, yet here he is, with no one trying to tear him away.

Has he been torn away from this before?

The sight of the sunset presses more at his mind, like his brain wants to swell and burst out from his skull, and a migraine begins to set in at his temples; he’s no stranger to pain and aches, but this one feels different.

“So it is,” he says flatly, staring directly at the setting sun until it leaves spots in his vision. It slips below the horizon, and they stay where they are, water lapping at their skin and wanting to pull them in, to return them to the sea like errant seashells and footprints left in the sand.

“Do you remember yet?” Ventus asks. He turns his head to look at Vanitas, and out of the corner of his eye Vanitas can see the hope in his expression, in his slightly parted lips and worried eyebrows and beseeching eyes.

“Remember _what?”_ he reiterates as he continues to stare where the sun just disappeared. “There’s something,” he claws one hand over his heart, “but I don’t know what it is.”

Ventus feels how close they are to an epiphany; he wants to shake it out of Vanitas with vigor, but he knows that this is something Vanitas has to figure out on his own. “Just wait,” he replies softly.

They stand there for some minutes watching the sky grow darker and darker until it’s lit by nothing but the stars and Vanitas can only feel the fish around his feet instead of seeing them. “Look up,” Ventus instructs, stretching one arm skyward and pointing at the stars.

Vanitas looks up, and the stars dazzle him. The headache presses more and more insistently until it becomes an unbearable, roaring ache, and he cries out and presses his palms to his temples. Dropping to a crouch, soaking his pants in the water, he grits his teeth and squeezes his head tighter, tighter, tighter, like he’s trying to keep his brain from leaking out of his ears in rivulets. Ventus quickly crouches down in front of him and pulls his hands away from his head, holding onto them tight to ease his heart.

Fingers rub across Vanitas’s palms and wide blue eyes stare at him—but there aren't any tears in those eyes anymore. Where would the tears have been? Why would he think Ventus has been crying? 

But he’s the one crying—silent, ugly tears, releasing the pressure that’s been building up inside of his head through his tear ducts. Ventus desperately chatters words meant to soothe him, but to Vanitas they sound all garbled and like they’re underwater, and Vanitas has to stop for a moment to make sure they’re not—he looks around frantically, but it’s just him and Ventus and the fish and the buzzing of cicadas and then it _clicks._

“You promised,” he gasps, clawing at Ventus’s hands, “you promised, you promised, youpromisedyoupromisedyou—”

Ventus sees the exact moment the look in Vanitas’s eyes change and he _knows_ this is the boy he loves. Then he’s crying as well, babbling something that Vanitas still can’t understand—but the important thing is that it’s _him_ and Vanitas knows who he is and why he’s here and what’s happened.

The word ‘promise’ leaves Ventus’s mouth, and that’s all Vanitas needs to lunge into Ventus’s arms, bowling him over. It’s lucky that the water is shallow enough that they don’t end up with lungs full of salt, but both of them still end up entirely soaked, Vanitas straddling Ventus’s hips and pressed up to his torso with Ventus attempting to keep himself up with his elbows.

Vanitas presses forward—and then presses forward more and more until Ventus’s elbows are knocked out from beneath him, and suddenly their heads are underwater. Even so, Vanitas tries to wrap around Ventus like a vice, completely uncaring of the salt water going up his nose and burning his insides.

After a few moments that feel like eternities, Ventus manages to sit the both of them up and comes up out of the water gasping and sputtering. “Vanitas!” he wails, both out of joy and annoyance, as he wipes his hair out of his face and coughs up seawater.

There’s nothing for Vanitas to say that could encapsulate exactly what he’s feeling at the moment, so he simply wraps his arms around Ventus’s shoulders and holds him tight, face buried in his neck so he can smell that distinct scent under the salt that reminds him that he’s _home_.

Relieved beyond words, Ventus wraps his arms around him in turn, holding him tight yet still cradling him like he’s precious. “Vanitas,” he repeats breathily with his lips close to Vanitas’s ear, clambering into his lap because oh, does he miss those strong arms holding him close.

“Ventus,” Vanitas replies, his words being muffled by Ventus’s neck, and he lets out a ragged sob. Then, he pulls back enough to press their foreheads together and grips Ventus’s hair, breathing heavily. “I promised,” he whispers, “I promised I would find you.”

Ventus closes his eyes and soaks in the feeling of Vanitas so _close_ after so long, and for the first time he gets to touch him like this in the flesh. They can feel the warmth of each other’s skin and hear their frantic breathing and it’s _excellent_. “Yeah,” he responds hoarsely, “you did. And I promised you I’d bring you back to me.”

“Never again. We’ll never be apart again,” Vanitas pants, tugging at Ventus’s hair in a way he always did—but a way Ventus can now feel.

Ventus whispers something incomprehensible back, and they connect at the exact same moment. Meeting in the middle of the space between them, they push their lips against each other’s like they’ve done dozens upon dozens of times in their safe haven that’s now real. The water lapping at their waists is real; the stars shining above their heads are real; the tastes of their lips are real; their hands pressed to cheeks are real.

“Do you promise?” Ventus frantically whispers, their noses squashed together and his fingers searching at Vanitas’s cheeks as he presses even closer as if he’s determined to become one again in any way possible.

“I promise. Promise on my fucking life, Ventus,” Vanitas whispers back as he presses into Ventus as well. Neither of them has care for the fact that they’re sitting waist deep in water and are absolutely soaked—for them, absolutely nothing matters except for the other half of their heart.

Ventus attempts to say something that just turns into a voice crack and more tears, and Vanitas cups his cheeks as he methodically kisses them away. This is so much softer than he would’ve imagined ever being an hour ago but now that memories of a sweet past are filling his head, he wants to stay like this forever.

“I’m home,” Vanitas mumbles. 

Smiling softly, Ventus corrects, “ _We’re_ home,” and Vanitas can’t help but smile back and nod in agreement. 

Here, against all odds, they’re home—not in a house, not on a particular world, but in each other’s arms. 

When Ventus pulls him closer and mouths something against his ear, Vanitas thinks—maybe, just maybe, he can actually have a happy ending.


End file.
